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Good Day? Vesna Main

Good Day? By Vesna Main

Good Day? by Vesna Main


$14.99
Condition - Very Good
Only 4 left

Summary

This novel-within-a-novel charts the writing of a story about Richard and Anna, a middle-aged professional couple, who face the biggest crisis of their twenty-five-year marriage when he admits seeing prostitutes.

Good Day? Summary

Good Day? by Vesna Main

Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2019

In a world where we present our diverse selves through social media, chatbots and messaging, this dark novel listens in on intimate secrets, desires and adultery.

This novel-within-a-novel charts the writing of a story about Richard and Anna, a middle-aged professional couple, who face the biggest crisis of their twenty-five-year marriage when he admits seeing prostitutes. The text unfolds through a dialogue between Anna, the writer, and her husband, Richard, the reader.

As the story of Richard and Anna progresses, the tension between them increases and, on several occasions, they stop speaking to each other. The writer's novel compels them to examine their own marriage.

Gradually the differences between the characters in the novel on the one hand and the reader and the writer on the other appear to diminish to the point where we begin to wonder whether the reader, like Richard, pays for sex, and whether the writer, like her female protagonist, is coping with the situation by having several lovers.

Good Day? Reviews

Within the tale are many interesting diversions. The author explores themes such as: addiction, obsessive behaviour, rewriting memory when exposed to new information. There are threads on class and the affectations of the intelligentsia. There are challenges to thinking that places itself as the moral high ground. The writing is tense and compelling. Although nuanced and layered the story has the feel of a thriller. It is admirable that so much has been fitted into such a concise volume. This is a clever and thought-provoking read.

-- Jackie Law * neverimitate *

It is thought-provoking and insightful, and, while it could prove uncomfortable reading for anyone who is part of a middle-aged married couple, I think it is an important book and one that I can imagine prize judges responding to very positively as the year unfolds.

-- Scott Pack

This is the second jacket I've fallen in love with this year, another which fits its book perfectly. Always a joy when publishers use an image which is both strikingly original and appropriate. Vesna Main's Good Day? recounts a daily conversation between a Writer and her Reader, who is also her husband, describing the progress of her novel about a couple whose marriage is strained to breaking point.

* A Life In Books *

The format might lead one to expect an ironic, fabular illustration of how unsophisticated readers get fiction wrong. But Main is more sophisticated than that. There are layers of fiction in Good Day?, each of them unstable.

* Times Literary Supplement *

Good Day? turns the structure of a typical novel inside out, and the experience of reading it is also transformed. The tale of Anna and Richard is disconcertingly fluid, because it hasn't yet been settled - and the tale of the Writer and Reader is just out of our reach. There are also some nice touches that made me smile: it's common enough for an author to incorporate one of their previously published short stories into a novel, but I've never seen it done quite like this... and I shall say no more about that!

* David's World of Books *

In Good Day?, Main has created a clever, and thought-provoking story which engages as it delights. Its deceptively simple prose slices through layers of thematic enquiry to address contemporary concerns over identity, gender and representation. For all this, it's an easy and compelling read, as tense as a thriller, twisting and turning, right down to its last postscript.

* Litro *

Beautifully depicted and on point given the complexities of the society we live in today, this modern take on the contemporary nature of marriage entertains as much as it explores the myriad of emotions that run deep in all forms of human relationships. A good read indeed.

* Platform *

About Vesna Main

Vesna Main was born in Zagreb, Croatia. She studied comparative literature before obtaining a doctorate from the Shakespeare Institute in Birmingham. She has worked as a journalist, lecturer and teacher. Her previous work includes A Woman with No Clothes On (Delancey Press, 2008) and a collection of short stories, Temptation: A User's Guide (Salt 2018). Her stories have appeared in numerous journals, including Persimmon Tree, The Literateur and Storgy. One was selected for the Best British Short Stories 2017 (Salt, 2017). Her autofiction, Only A Lodger...And Hardly That, will be brought out by Seagull Books in 2019.

Additional information

GOR010054570
9781784631918
1784631914
Good Day? by Vesna Main
Used - Very Good
Paperback
Salt Publishing
2019-04-15
224
Short-listed for Goldsmiths Prize 2019 (UK)
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Good Day?